Addressed to “Dear Colleague”, the letter explains the federal government’s stance when it comes to restrooms, locker rooms, athletics or same-sex classes – namely, that public schools, colleges, universities and educational institutions receiving federal funding must allow transgender students to have access to facilities consistent with their gender identity.
Advertisement
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said “there is no room in our schools for discrimination” and was sending the directive Friday to school districts.
President Obama’s administration has instituted federally mandated edicts that affect employees as well as every parent and child within a public school system.
That lawsuit came hours after North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory sued the Justice Department, accusing it of overreaching after federal lawyers said the state’s law requiring public bathroom use based on birth gender was a civil rights violation.
A letter was issued by the Department of Justice and Department of Education on Friday calling on public school districts to accommodate transgender students.
The guidance provided this week from the federal government is in response to the growing debate over a recently-passed law in North Carolina.
The best practices document also gives guidance on how schools can “protect the privacy rights of all students”, holding up a suggestion from Washington state that recommends offering “students who may feel uncomfortable sharing the facility with the transgender student(s)” the option to use a separate single-occupant restroom. The departments consider gender identity and transgender status as sex, meaning “a school must not treat a transgender student differently from the way it treats other students of the same gender identity”.
“Everybody has to be protected… but it’s a tiny, tiny portion of the population”, Trump told Fox News, adding that the issue is one that should be left up to individual states.
Speck said these sorts of issues should be handled on a case-to-case basis at the local level.
For its part, the Obama administration is standing behind its directive, according to an Associated Press story by Eric Tucker. Schools are obligated to treat students according to their chosen gender identity, and there is no obligation for students to present a medical diagnoses for the change, according to the directive.
It also warns that the right of transgender students to use their desired bathrooms should be respected even if students, parents, or members of the community complain. Today, the Obama Administration took its war from the Kentucky coalfield to the Kentucky classroom.
Advertisement
Democrat Martin said that if, as Atkinson said, state schools already let transgender people choose which bathrooms or locker rooms room to use, “I’m not really sure what all these indignant statements are about other than political posturing”.
